


Black Coffee

by Moonrose91



Series: The Coffee of Life [6]
Category: The Avengers (2012), White Collar
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Past Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moonrose91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinner is over and Liz has invited Neal to stay for coffee.</p><p>Neal knows that something is going to come of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Coffee

"How did you meet Coulson's little minion anyway?" Peter asked and Neal resisted the urge to glare at Peter surprisingly well.

Darcy was always a weak spot in Neal's armor and Elizabeth handed Neal a coffee, which he thanked her for, and turned to Peter.

“Darcy’s no one’s minion,” Neal corrected as Elizabeth asked, “Who is Coulson and why does he have a minion?”

Peter let out a soft sigh and stared at Neal, who just smiled back politely while his wife twisted to focus on Peter. “Coulson…Phil,” Peter explained and Elizabeth  _beamed_.

“Oh, _Phil_! I remember Phil. He was so nice to me when you got leant to SHIELD and you went off the grid. Satchmo liked him too,” Elizabeth answered cheerfully and the grit of teeth Peter gave told Neal how much he disliked that.

“You shouldn’t worry so much Peter. _Phil_ is well and truly taken, even when that happened,” Neal answered, remembering the way Darcy had gossiped with him while they drank coffee and she was perched on his desk.

“Wait, you’ve been seeing Phil and you haven’t told me?” Elizabeth asked, focused on him.

Peter shifted nervously and Neal just smiled, focused on his coffee, while Peter explained.

“Yes, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is in the office. They’ve been going through our old case files, trying to find something. Mostly, his little minion, Darcy Lewis, has been digging through the files and pulling out certain things only while noting where they come from, while Coulson has been extracting something from my boss, which is making him tense, which makes _me_ tense. And it doesn’t help that Darcy has been tormenting Jones with getting Neal signed collectables from the Avengers.”

Elizabeth turned on Neal and he smiled before pulling out of his jacket pocket a set of mint edition cards of the Avengers, all signed. She thanked him and gave him a kiss on the cheek while Peter scowled at him.

Neal gave an innocent shrug and Elizabeth smiled over the personal notes that were above the signatures.

“So…who’s Darcy?” Elizabeth asked and Neal felt his smile twitch into his Con Smile.

He sipped his coffee and answered, “That’s what Peter has been trying to find out too. He’s decided we aren’t ex-lovers, which…thank God, because I don’t think I could handle anyone thinking that. I met her when she was 15, as Darcy said. We kept in touch. We emailed. Occasionally I sent her postcards. She’ll deny to the grave she kept them,” Neal responded.

“You also didn’t panic when she mentioned her boyfriend would stalk you,” Peter stated.

“She’s a part of SHIELD. I would have been surprised if there was no stalking,” Neal answered, not mentioning that he may or may not have pulled an art heist for them.

“She’s Coulson’s minion,” Peter argued.

“Don’t say that to her face.”

It falls out of Neal’s mouth before he can stop it.

He pretends he meant to say it, but Darcy’s story is not his to tell.

Neal knows, knows from years of chatting with her over email and the occasional phone call (the last call on a burner phone before he made sure no information could be pulled from it) how she feels about those years.

A puppet with no will, a minion forced to follow orders.

Elizabeth is watching Neal and he smiles at her. “Well, you two met on a con that never happened. What then?” Peter questioned and Elizabeth sips her coffee, black, and smiles.

“I’ve never heard you talk of Darcy,” she stated and Neal looks down, smile dropping.

“I tried to con her father. She stopped me. Darcy was…angry. Very angry. Her father had just recovered from being conned by the woman he had married, who had divorced him, and made him think for nearly a decade that his daughter was dead. And she knew every con I knew. Twisted them around on me, and snarled at my smiles,” Neal answered.

He tightens his grip on the coffee cup, briefly, and looks over at Peter and El. Peter is watching him, but she's _seeing_ him.

“The rest isn’t my story to tell. The rest is Da-…” he begins to answer, but is cut off by the phone Darcy gave him buzzing.

He apologizes and pulls it out.

“How could you afford the latest Starkphone?” Peter asked.

“Darce gave it to me,” Neal answered as he opened the text.

_You can tell them Neal. – Darce-Darce_

“Either Darce has the best timing ever, or her boyfriend hacked my new phone,” he stated, even as he put the phone away, settling the coffee cup on a coaster on their coffee table.

Elizabeth only remembered saucers for tea cups, but she and Peter usually drank the coffee in one sitting on the couch, while tea was savored.

Neal ran a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose before he leaned back calmly. “Darcy grew up in a con family. She was used in cons, had more aliases and names then me by age eight, and was learning the family trade. However, of all of them, she was the only one who had a conscious,” he explained.

“When I met her, she didn’t know who she was. She was known as ‘that creepy girl’ in school. She was pulling pieces of personality from people, working at conning herself, fabricating a personality that she liked. Or maybe one she thought her dad wanted,” he continued and paused.

Old tells came back when he was emotionally distressed, but…not now.

He couldn’t do that to Darce now.

“Her father had a gun. She had gone to the bridge, was sitting on the edge. Out of the way, her father never would have found a body. I had gone for a walk and I found her,” Neal continued softly.

He heard Elizabeth let out a startled sound and Neal gave a tiny smile. “Grabbed the gun hand and pointed it away, while I wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her back. I couldn’t get it out of her hand, she was determined to cling to it. And then she just let it go and started crying on me. She…she just wanted to know how to be a person. Who she was and she couldn’t find it out. It didn’t help that she was bullied, that she had no friends. She had lived her life as a con and just didn’t want to do it anymore. Raised on lies and fed pretty tales, she didn’t want to give anyone else that.”

He paused and then leaned forward, grabbing his coffee and drinking it. “She got help and she became my Darce. Her dad clung to her when I got her home. I gave him the gun, told him where I found her. He knew, just…not how bad it was. I’m…glad she never found out she had been conning her dad into thinking she was okay. She’d have broken over that. By the time she was 18, three years later, she was the Darcy Lewis that follows Phil around and torments Jones and gives me signed Avengers’ things. And…well, saving a life binds you to that person in a way that is untouchable, so I just think of Darce as the baby sister I never had till I met her. Who knew an attempted art switch would end up with me gaining family?” Neal finished off.

“You bonded over preventing her suicide?” Peter asked.

“I saw what a life of lies had done to her. She had never been allowed to be herself. So…more then just that, but that was when it came to a head,” Neal answered.

Neal barely has time to save the coffee when El is hugging him tightly and he hugs her back.

“Bring her by, okay?” she asked as she sat back, wiping her eyes.

“Just don’t give her pity eyes. She might tazer you for that, FBI agent’s wife or no,” Neal answered and Elizabeth managed a laugh.

Peter was quiet and offered to drive Neal to June’s.

Neal agreed, thanked Liz for dinner and coffee and headed to where Peter’s car waited.

They were parked in front of June’s when Peter asked, “Why did she never show up in your file?”

Neal paused and turned to Peter. “Because I couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t let her get hurt because of choices I had made before I met her,” he answered.

Peter nodded and Neal moved to get out when Peter stopped him agan.

“If we had used Darcy instead of Kate?”

Neal stills, his heart thudding painfully in his chest and he looked over at Peter. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation, because family is sacred, and I never would have forgiven you for using Darcy like that.”

Peter nodded and Neal got out, smiling at Peter.

“Night Peter,” he greeted and headed inside, once he shut the car door.

He greeted June and Moz. “You have a visitor,” June stated and Neal raised an eyebrow.

“Darcy,” Moz clarified.

“Did she look like I needed to kill her boyfriend?” Neal asked and Mozzie shook his head.

Neal smiled and headed up to his loft.

Darcy crashed into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her protectively, resting his cheek on her hair.

He was drained and she was too, even if she hadn’t been there.

Neal just rubbed a comforting hand over her back and let her cry into his chest, speckling her glasses and soaking his suit front.

In the end, Darcy spent the night in one of June's guest rooms, and Neal slept on his bed, one hand clutching to a picture of a fifteen year old Darcy with a younger Neal, both smiling genuinely at the camera.

It was one of the few Neal owned with real smiles captured for all of eternity.


End file.
